Random musings on history, politics, and more

Archive for December 31st, 2007

I’ve mentioned before in passing the Proteus Management Group, a fairly shadowy and little-reported “strategic” think-tank “sponsored”, and thus, presumably, funded by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Like most groups who rely on the current American government for their funding and, indeed, continued, existence, they tend to be pretty unapologetically hawkish in their outlook, and rarely hesitate to forecast doom and gloom, while, perhaps not coincidentally, rarely if ever offering, you know, solutions…Read the rest of this entry »

A Guardian article from earlier this month notes that twenty percent of recent requests under the British FOI laws were rejected; more interesting is the fact that the relatively tiny number of requests is in decline, compared to previous years.

Not to sound completely cynical, but I think there’s a very real, and very good, reason for this – early on, every researcher who’d long said “if only there were a way to get my hands on X” took advantage of the new law, as did a lot of crackpots, loonies, conspiracy theorists, amateur xenozoologists… At one point, early on, nearly a quarter of requests to the MOD involved aliens or UFOs – and heck, even British urban explorers were getting in the game, requesting maps and video of Corsham Tunnels at an alarming rate. Now, the excitement has died down, and things are assuming a less frenzied pace. That’s my theory, anyway…